Go you big red fire engine!

[elspeth]

Alistair asked me on another thread where my signature 'Go you big red fire engine!' comes from, so as it's a bit long-winded I'm posting a new thread for it! Are you sitting comfortably?

There's a comedian called Adam Hills. He's Australian, you'll see him on some of the comedians' panel games shows on TV, and he was on tour over here before Christmas, and usually does a show at the Edinburgh festival.

He is a self-confessed 'typical' Australian - cheerful, extrovert, and positive to the point of insanity. In this vein, he used to do, as part of his live show, a sequence where he would talk for a bit about James Brown, who during his shows used to get the audience to shout his name out, then he would shout it back to them, they'd shout it back to him... you get the idea. It would get a buzz going among the crowd and help him get psyched up to do a good show.

Anyway, Adam would get a member of the audience up on stage and get them to do it - yell their name out to the audience, who would yell it back... The point, being, so Adam could go on to talk about things like positive self image (he's only got one foot, so he talks a lot about things like disability and self-image and people's reactions to disabled people). It got a good atmosphere going among the crowd and was a real boost for whoever was onstage hearing the audience shouting their name and cheering.

At one show in particular, he got a guy out of the audience, who turned out to be a fireman. He was set up to do the name-shouting thing, and when he got the microphone, he went quiet and everyone thought he'd corpsed, then he just yelled 'Go you big red fire engine!' Everyone, including Adam, was completely bemused, so the guy yelled it again, and the audience got back into the routine and shouted it back. It created, apparently (I wasn't there, this was a gig in Australia), the most incredible, positive atmosphere, and ever since it's been Adam's catch-phrase - it represents everything that's wonderful and silly and positive and life-affirming. So, it gets talked about at all his gigs, and he always asks people to pass it on in any way they can.

So... it's a message to everyone out there that there's a lot of good in the world and life can be fun and positive if you choose to make it so.

[ahinton]

Alistair asked me on another thread where my signature 'Go you big red fire engine!' comes from, so as it's a bit long-winded I'm posting a new thread for it! Are you sitting comfortably?

There's a comedian called Adam Hills. He's Australian, you'll see him on some of the comedians' panel games shows on TV, and he was on tour over here before Christmas, and usually does a show at the Edinburgh festival.

He is a self-confessed 'typical' Australian - cheerful, extrovert, and positive to the point of insanity. In this vein, he used to do, as part of his live show, a sequence where he would talk for a bit about James Brown, who during his shows used to get the audience to shout his name out, then he would shout it back to them, they'd shout it back to him... you get the idea. It would get a buzz going among the crowd and help him get psyched up to do a good show.

Anyway, Adam would get a member of the audience up on stage and get them to do it - yell their name out to the audience, who would yell it back... The point, being, so Adam could go on to talk about things like positive self image (he's only got one foot, so he talks a lot about things like disability and self-image and people's reactions to disabled people). It got a good atmosphere going among the crowd and was a real boost for whoever was onstage hearing the audience shouting their name and cheering.

At one show in particular, he got a guy out of the audience, who turned out to be a fireman. He was set up to do the name-shouting thing, and when he got the microphone, he went quiet and everyone thought he'd corpsed, then he just yelled 'Go you big red fire engine!' Everyone, including Adam, was completely bemused, so the guy yelled it again, and the audience got back into the routine and shouted it back. It created, apparently (I wasn't there, this was a gig in Australia), the most incredible, positive atmosphere, and ever since it's been Adam's catch-phrase - it represents everything that's wonderful and silly and positive and life-affirming. So, it gets talked about at all his gigs, and he always asks people to pass it on in any way they can.

So... it's a message to everyone out there that there's a lot of good in the world and life can be fun and positive if you choose to make it so.

Well, well! I'd never have guessed. Thanks for the enlightenment. It just goes to show how a short question somtimes requires a comparatively long answer, does it not?!

I presume that Ada knew this answer all along...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

It just goes to show how a short question somtimes requires a comparatively long answer, does it not?!

But in this case, the question was almost as long

Thal

[ahinton]

But in this case, the question was almost as long

Thal

No, it wasn't! Please go check the thread in which I asked it and measure the question's word count against that of "elspeth"'s response...

Best,

Alistair